


Like Snow Falling Softly

by JulyStorms



Category: Rurouni Kenshin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The slow process of change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Snow Falling Softly

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted on Tumblr to write: 2. in the snow & 26\. tactile with a pairing I hadn't written in a while or miss, and so I picked Aoshi and Misao, because it's been a long time.

Eventually, Misao learns. She’s never been good at being patient, especially not with Aoshi-sama, but the memories of him and the reality only overlap. To reconcile the two is hard. It takes time. The old Aoshi-sama and the new are not two completely different people, but substantially different, yes, of course; how can they not be? He’s so much older, now, and so is she. The people they have become are not the people they  _were_. The world isn’t, either, or maybe things would be simpler for them both.

Their path, though deceptively parallel, is difficult. Progress crawls; they have to work for it, and Misao isn’t sure she’s ever before felt the inclination to work so hard for anything as she has for this. It was easy to run off after rumors of Aoshi-sama in her youth, but it’s hard for her to watch him spend time alone, wondering if just beneath the surface of his calm exterior he’s hurting somehow.

She wouldn’t worry about it if she didn’t sometimes feel that kind of pain herself. She dreams, on sticky summer nights, of him coming to tell her goodbye. She knows she needs to wake up and stop him, but she can never manage it. It’s like his leaving was as destined to happen as her chasing him for years and years and years. She’s  _tired_  of chasing, now–tired of running after a man who doesn’t want to be caught.

But he’s still running and she’s still chasing, so maybe it is some kind of twisted destiny at play. Physically he’s with her, a part of the family again, but the gulf between them feels so wide most of the time that she’s not sure this is a chasm she can leap across.

Patience becomes her approach when she’s old enough to understand that laughter is not the best medicine for everyone. While he’s teaching himself how to forgive, she’s learning to move on with her life.

Not  _away_  from him, but into the new world with everyone else–into tentative education and new fashions and away from some of the tradition that doesn’t fit anymore.

She finds it suits her, though sometimes it makes her sad that the life that she was born into is considered antiquated, now. She wonders how Aoshi-sama feels about it, or if he’s made peace with the changes as she’s been able to. He hardly talks to her, after all; he hardly talks to anyone.

But while she’s attending lectures and changing out her old clothes for new ones, he’s coming into himself again. He’s taking over the family business, as they’re calling it these days, and it’s more than just the restaurant business. A part of her wishes he’d let the information-brokering go, but the rest of her is glad that their shared heritage, as fragile as it is, now, as  _different_  as it’s become, will remain.

She stops calling him Aoshi-sama when her idealism slips and she sees him for the first time as a man like any other. He’s sitting outside on a low bench and the snow is falling–great, fat flakes of it. It peppers his dark hair and his clothes and something about the picture strikes her as both lovely and sad. She watches him for a while, takes in the lines marking his face and the way his eyes seem worn.

She remembers when he was bright and sharp and jagged, but she finds that this version of him, though perhaps a little ragged, is someone she can relate to–someone whose anger and hurt will no longer cloud his judgment, someone who has made mistakes but is willing to do better in the future. This is a man she can love fully and without regret, whether he returns the intensity of it or not.

She calls him only, “Aoshi,” when she approaches him a moment later, and it is this one small change that lessens the gaping chasm between them. She can almost step over it, now, she thinks when he looks at her and she can tell that he sees her the way she sees him: older and different and somehow better for it.

She offers him a smile and he returns it in his own way–an inclination of his head before he gets to his feet. He’s still too tall and she’s too short; some things never change, and she’s glad for it. She needs that bit of familiarity to keep her grounded, sometimes.

He’s standing so close that she has to tilt her head back to see his face. “We’re about to have tea together, if you’d like to join us.”

He makes a soft sound of assent, as she expects him to, but what she failed to plan for is the, “Thank you,” that follows it. 

The reason for his thanks is unknown; she supposes he might be thanking her for any number of things: perhaps for dropping the honorific that has probably made him uncomfortable for years, now, or maybe just for coming to get him for tea. It doesn’t really matter–he’s welcome either way.

She ducks her head to hide that he has managed to make her smile wider, and leads the way back into the house. 


End file.
